


When I find the living a bore, there’s a place I go

by RobberBaroness



Category: Dracula - Bram Stoker
Genre: F/F, F/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:26:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21720148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobberBaroness/pseuds/RobberBaroness
Summary: Lucy is a bad chaperone.
Relationships: Lucy Westenra/Mina Harker/Jonathan Harker
Comments: 11
Kudos: 41
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	When I find the living a bore, there’s a place I go

**Author's Note:**

  * For [calliopes_pen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/calliopes_pen/gifts).



Mina’s auburn hair looked wine-dark in the moonlight, Lucy thought to herself. It made her look both elegant and a little bit sinister, though of course her ghostly aspect was enhanced by the graveyard setting. Jonathan looked as if he could be her willing victim, his eyes wide with affection and gleaming with light. It was a loving scene and Lucy knew she shouldn’t intrude on it- she should fade into the background like a good chaperone- but was that quite fair? She had sacrificed her entire evening to be with two lovely people, so shouldn’t she be allowed to take advantage of that fact?

The pair of lovers were holding hands, and as Lucy caught up with them, she put her own hand on her friend’s shoulder. Her other arm brushed Jonathan’s, and it felt as if a streak of heat ran through all three of them. Perhaps it was her imagination, but it warmed her through the chill of the night.

“Which of the gravestones are your favorites?” she asked. “I am fond of the angels, of course, but I find myself growing fonder of those decorated with a willow tree. It seems such a peaceful place to rest under.”

Rather than looking irritated by her overbearing friend, Mina smiled. “I had not been paying the strictest attention to the pictures, I am afraid. I have been noticing the dates, though- people born and dead before I can even really imagine. Jonathan, what about you?”

Jonathan cocked his head to one side- it made him look a bit like a puppy, Lucy reflected.

“If I must pick a favorite aspect of gravestones, I suppose it would be the epitaphs. A name alone means nothing to me, but to know someone was a loving mother? A devoted husband? It is still not terribly detailed, but if I cannot form a full picture of the deceased, at least I may begin to see a sketch.”

“What would you say on mine?” asked Mina. “It is too soon to say ‘beloved wife’, and I have no parents left to eulogize me.”

“Dearest friend,” Lucy interjected. Jonathan simply shook his head.

“Ghouls, both of you,” he said, but there was fondness in his voice. “Positively ghoulish. Mina is not going to die any time soon, and with any luck it will be our children deciding how eternity shall remember us. I knew I should have taken the two of you to the theater instead of the graveyard tonight.”

“Oh, but then we would not be able to talk!” Lucy protested. “And besides, we may attend the theater on any night, but the moon this evening is so lovely, it would be a great shame to hide from it.”

“She does make a compelling argument,” Mina put in. “And I have seen you at Christmas, Jonathan- I know you are just as fond of ghost stories as any of us. You cannot tell me now that death frightens you.”

Jonathan shook his head, smiling. He really was handsome, Lucy thought to herself. In a quiet way, it was true, but there was something about him that suggested a delicate painting. Her two friends holding hands could have been posing for a portrait by Millais or Rossetti, him with his eager smile and her with her knowing glances. It would be a beautiful work.

It was unfair that she could only observe them as if they were a picture. Terribly unfair. Likely she would marry and become part of a beautiful pair of her own, but that seemed so far away, and her friends were so close. She did not ever want them to be far from her, but the night would have to end eventually. They would go home with thoughts of each other, and she would go home to report having been a dutiful chaperone.

Their feet crunched on the fallen leaves beneath their feet, shriveled and brown and stiff. When Mina stopped to read a gravestone so old that all its writing was nearly worn away, Lucy thought that this was the particular image she would wish to have, if her friends really were in a painting. Mina and Jonathan and herself in the moonlight, framed by memento mori.

Coming up short against her friend’s abrupt stop, Lucy stumbled up against Mina, and Jonathan caught her and saved her from falling. She was so close to both of them, she could feel that old familiar heat forming a three-link chain between them all. All thought of the chill was forgotten. Lucy could ignore it, but she still had the rest of the night to go, and it would likely only grow stronger. The heat might become totally unbearable, and then where would she be?

She could not keep her thoughts a secret any longer. It would do no harm to say them, surely.

“Your hair looks like dark wine in the moonlight,” Lucy whispered to Mina, then turned. “And Jonathan, the light makes your eyes shine like nothing I have ever seen. I would be lucky to see anyone else in all my life the way I see the two of you tonight.”

It was hard to tell in the dark, but Lucy was fairly sure that Jonathan blushed. Mina, she noticed, did not. Perhaps she was by now used to her friend saying odd things at odd moments.

Impulsively, she leaned in and kissed him, a soft kiss from an admirer, then Mina, a firm kiss from a true love. Neither reacted with shock, as she had feared- rather, Jonathan placed his hand upon Lucy’s back and Mina sighed and pressed her body into her side. Were they offering her acceptance or indulgence? Despite her worry, she did not wish to pull away from the embrace. The three of them stood there for a moment, warm in the chill of the night, then slowly they recovered their dignity.

“I’m afraid I’m not a very good chaperone, am I?” asked Lucy with a nervous smile. “But none of our mothers need to know. It was only a moment. Nothing more. I promise, I meant nothing more than my honest affection.” It was that next reaction that would seal her fate, and she waited for an outcry or an insult.

Mina took Lucy’s right hand. Jonathan took her left. The three of them walked through the moonlit graveyard.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a lyric from Voltaire’s “Graveyard Picnic” (I thought I'd try out the lyric fic title format!) Thank you so much to my beta Assimbya.


End file.
